CA Recall Flashback:Tom McClintock on the liberal media (VIDEO)

Rep. Tom McClintock was the conservative conservative’s choice for governor in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall. But alas, it wasn’t his time. He finished third. But until about two weeks before election day, he still thought he could win.

Until then, McClintock believes that conservative voters were behind him, skeptical that fellow GOPer Arnold Schwarzenegger was conservative enough for their tastes. Party leaders and major donors urged McClintock to get out the race, fearful of splitting the GOP vote and allowing Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante to win.

“(The migration of voters) certainly coincided with the same time,” McClintock told us. “Yes, I think it helped him. And ultimately, we succumbed to the ‘Well, Arnold can win and McClintock can’t,’ mantra that we were getting out of the Republican Party establishment.”

After the race, McClintock cleared the air with Schwarzenegger. He actually thought Schwarzenegger did well in his first couple of years in office. Then, McClintock said Schwarzenegger took a hard left turn, and he couldn’t support him any longer.

“The recall was the last exit off a road to ruin,” McClintock told us when we met in his Granite Bay office recently. “Californians took that exit, but unfortunately got right back on that road.”

Poetry, that is, to conservative ears.

McClintock was THE Republican to beat in the recall before some guy with 100 percent name recognition, $20 million and a resume that included working with Danny DeVito decided to jump into the race. McClintock had just lost the 2002 race for state controller by only 16,811 votes — out of 6 million cast — to Democrat Steve Westly. He lost for the same position in 1994 by only two percent of the vote. So he had some statewide name recognition.

And conservatives LOVED him. Still do. Whenever he speaks at the state Republican convention, he’s embraced like a rock star.

But he harbors no bitterness about how the recall went. Wouldn’t change a thing about how he ran his campaign. I asked him whether he regrets not more aggressively challenging Schwarzenegger during the one debate that the Terminator decided to show up at. Before the debate, McClintock had referred to Arnold as an “amateur.”

“My strategy in that debate was to put forward a clear, conservative message and let the chips fall where they may. I wasn’t there to attack Arnold Schwarzenegger. I was there to propound a series of reforms that I felt at the time — and still feel — that are vital to restoring California’s prosperity.”

“I think I made the arguments so clearly that he was forced to adopt them,” McClintock said.

McClintock said that without a conservative in the race…an, ahem, REAL conservative… the recall wouldn’t have happened. And Schwarzenegger would have been even more liberal.

“I’m convinced that had there not been a conservative in the race, that (Schwarzenegger) would have quickly moved to the left on his campaign message. And if there was no conservative in the race, the recall itself was in danger of failing,” he said. “There were a lot of conservative voters who would have stayed home had their not been a conservative on the ballot as an alternative.”

Some quick hits from McClintock on his fellow recall candidates:

On Schwarzenegger: “He lacked a depth of understanding of the issues but he more than made up for that with the charisma he developed over two careers, one in competitive bodybuilding and one in films. There’s no way to look at him without seeing a formidable candidate. But he seemed awfully shallow on the issues.”

On Bustamante: “I had a difficult time figuring out Cruz Bustamante. He was there because he wanted to be governor, but beyond that, it wasn’t clear.”

On Green Party candidate, the late Peter Camejo: Even though they disagreed diametrically on most issues, McClintock said “I had great respect and admiration for Peter. He was a gentleman. Didn’t have a mean bone in his body. Was there for the same reason I was, to advance principles that he firmly believed in. High degree of admiration and respect, even affection” for him.

On Arianna Huffington: “I considered her a personal friend. Her positions at the time were not really clear to me and really weren’t clear to a lot of people. I’ve always gotten along with Arianna and she was always kind and complimentary to me.”

And here, courtesy of The San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate.com’s Shaky Hand Productions is McClintock in his office:

For more of our look back at the impact of the 2003 California Recall go to sfgate.com/recall